Last update:

Genetics news

Genetics

New study challenges longstanding assumption about the cause of the genome's most common mutation

A Ludwig Cancer Research study has punctured a longstanding assumption about the source of the most common type of DNA mutation seen in the genome—one that contributes to many genetic diseases, including cancer.

Oncology & Cancer

Large-scale study identifies prostate cancer genetic risk factors in a diverse group of African men

Researchers have identified the genetic risk factors that contribute to prostate cancer in a diverse group of African men. Although research and treatment are scant, this first large-scale African genomics study could signal ...

Medications

How your skin tone could affect how well your medication works

Skin pigmentation may act as a "sponge" for some medications, potentially influencing the speed with which active drugs reach their intended targets, a pair of scientists report in a perspective article published in the journal ...

Oncology & Cancer

Study uncovers mutations and DNA structures driving bladder cancer

How bladder cancer originates and progresses has been illuminated as never before in a study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and the New York Genome Center. The researchers found that antiviral enzymes that mutate ...

Genetics

Study finds new genetic loci associated with dementia

A research team comprising several researchers within the University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging has investigated the genetic risk of neuropathological traits commonly seen by neuropathologists performing ...

Genetics

How diabetes risk genes make cells less resilient to stress

The cells in your pancreas, like people, can only handle so much stress before they start to break down. Certain stressors, such as inflammation and high blood sugar, contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes by overwhelming ...

Oncology & Cancer

Cell line models identify cause of melanoma with drug resistance

Melanoma is a type of cancer that originates from melanocytes, the cells responsible for producing skin pigment, and is known as the most lethal form of skin cancer due to its high rates of metastasis and recurrence. With ...

Genetics

Mimicking effect of exercise with gene therapy

It sounds too good to be true—and it is. But Jose Bianco Moreira and the CERG research group at NTNU are convinced that some of the positive health effects of physical exercise can be achieved using gene therapy and medication.

Genetics

Gene that protects against osteoarthritis identified

Osteoarthritis is one of the most common problems associated with aging, and although there are therapies to treat the pain that results from the breakdown of the cartilage that cushions joints, there are no available therapies ...

Genetics

Scientists identify new genetic MND risk factor in junk DNA

A new genetic risk factor for Motor Neurone Disease (MND), which if treated could halt or prevent the degenerative condition, has been identified in so-called 'junk DNA' by scientists at the University of Sheffield. The newly ...

Genetics

Treating brain diseases now possible

Neurological diseases of the brain such as dementia, autism and schizophrenia are now a growing social problem. Nevertheless, studies on their definitive cause are still insufficient. Recently, a POSTECH research team has ...

Genetics

HIV-like virus edited out of primate genome

Taking a major step forward in HIV research, scientists at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University have successfully edited SIV—a virus closely related to HIV, the cause of AIDS—from the genomes of non-human ...

Genetics

A tricky kidney puzzle

By analyzing the gene expression of single cells, algorithms are able to not only reconstruct their original location in the tissue, but also to determine details about their function. Teams led by Kai Schmidt-Ott and Nikolaus ...

Medical research

Researchers identify gene responsible for cellular aging

Cellular reprogramming can reverse the aging that leads to a decline in the activities and functions of mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs). This is something that scientists have known for a while. But what they had not ...

Genetics

The genetics of side-effects

Henk-Jan Guchelaar knows all too well the serious problems that the side-effects of medication can cause. As a professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, he has spent the last two decades ...

Oncology & Cancer

Gene donors at high risk for cancer received feedback

Researchers at the Estonian Genome Center at the University of Tartu studied how people at high risk for breast, ovarian or prostate cancer responded to the feedback of genetic findings. Gene donors who chose to receive results ...

Genetics

BICRA gene provides answers to patients, doctors and scientists

Physicians and scientists are constantly on the lookout for new disease genes that can help them understand why patients have undiagnosed medical problems. Often the first clues come from genetic testing that reveals a change ...